That’s how targeted advertising works yes. Not much of a reveal there?
I guess people need the obvious pointed out, and yeah fair enough.
Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams says company targeted ads at teens based on their ‘emotional state’
Submitted 3 weeks ago by dwazou@jlai.lu to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
qprimed@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I am sure you already know, but the objection here is going after kids. literally profiling and then abusing their vulnerabilities for profit. this isnt your standard cereal box advertising, I think this is something much darker and disgusting.
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I hear you, I’m saying this shouldn’t have been news to anyone.
brandon@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I didn’t see the testimony, but I did read her book.
When most people think “targeted advertising”, I think they are thinking about something like: this user is a middle-class woman between 18 and 25 who enjoys bicycles, so we’re show her ad X.
According to Wynn-Williams, Facebook/Meta is doing things like detecting when a user uploads, then immediately removes a photo–detecting that as a moment of emotional vulnerability (that is, the user was feeling self-conscious about their appearance), then bombarding them with ads in that moment for beauty products.
I think the former is ‘obvious’ to most people, but the latter probably isn’t.
(not accusing you of defending them BTW, just my 2¢ that this goes beyond what most people would consider obvious, imo)
gruhuken@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Book worth a read? Saw it on sale earlier and looked interesting
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I was just venting really, I’m not actually surprised this isn’t common knowledge. My bar for humanity already had tunnelled through the Mantel during covid, I think it’s in the outer core by now.
I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying either.
gashead76@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It is absolutely baffling that people don’t realize that people are the product. I’ve had some folks tell me that they understand and “don’t care” because the service is “free” or whatever, but then they get angry and freaked out when the platform knows exactly what they’re thinking, or at least seems to know.
There’s definitely a deficit in understanding and education on what corporate social media really does.
mPony@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
a) yes
b) what I find really concerning is that they may have already figured out how to change people’s behaviour: what they think is funny, what they think is appropriate to say/do, where they want to travel to (if at all), how they feel about certain celebrities they like or dislike, what is believable or not believable, how they feel about certain politicians, who to vote for. Some people are probably more easy to sway on certain topics than others are. It’s not a stretch to guess that they probably already know various paths to make individuals into something they currently are not.
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
People downvoting you don’t realize how much of a science advertising is.
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I think that’s true in general, but not why I was downdooted.
My guess was the downvotes are people assuming I don’t think it’s worse to manipulate children vs adults and that I was somehow okay with it apathetically.
I’m also an asshole occasionally when I see frustrating and disturbing things like this, so my kneejerk response is maybe where I fucked up.
I really need to get into the habit of letting a post stew in preview for a hot second before I let loose my mental vomit lol because I sometimes get my ass kicked for not communicating what I’m actually trying to say effectively.
Lfrith@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I wonder how prevalent adblocking is among the younger generations. Even among my peer group I’d see people browsing the web with no adblock and a bunch of ads on websites when I’d glance at a sea of laptops. It was eye opening that outside of the social media I use that many people are just not tech literate. If ad acceptance trending upward as people get younger and younger?
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I wonder how prevalent adblocking is among the younger generations
Speaking of advertising being a science like another person commented, it means it’s data driven. System harvesting data to make targeted ads a thing among other things…there’s ample data on this. Like another person replied.
backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users
datareportal.com/…/digital-2024-july-global-stats…
Lots and lots: www.ecosia.org/search?q=how+prevalent+is+adblocki…
But more to the point:
Women in every generation block less ads however, which I found interesting.
asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The difference is this is tracking and targeting minors.
And just because it is the status quo does not mean the general public is aware of it or the actual extent. It needs to be spelled out to them how and why.
Honestly I find it hard to believe any teens are on Facebook now, maybe IG is still cool? Nothing like before. Idk I don’t think teens are on those platforms really
Petter1@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
IG is like the most important place for teens right now…
Zero22xx@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Wake me up when something gets done about it other than a fine that amounts to about half a day’s profit for them.
jimbel@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
They need to be jailed and their companied closed
djsp@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
/s Meanwhile, in some Signal group: “Should we suicide her or do you guys figure she might have some ICE-worthy tattoos?”
j0ester@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
:punch: :americanflag: :fire:
NightCrawlerProMax@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Don’t all social media and internet companies do that? It’s all a case of machine learning. I can’t open Insta these days without being blasted with reels of boobs, cleavage etc. My wife gets reels of cooking, dancing etc. It doesn’t have to do anything with our searches or viewing. They’re using our personal information to create a model and shoving targeted content based on that down our throats. This has the highest probability of increasing engagement on their platform.
orcrist@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
No, it’s not normal. Almost no internet companies around the world try to do anything similar to what Meta did and does. Even if you focus on social media companies, I believe that only a small minority try to do that kind of thing.
For example, here we are on social media. Do you see any targeted advertising? Is it being done by the Lemmy instance? And how many instances are there? Then we could look at Mastodon, or discussion forums, or comment boards, or you name it. Of course you would expect some targeted advertising, like you might find computer advertisements if you’re on a computer tech forum, but that’s different from targeting users who are in a weak state of mind, precisely because it’s targeting their overtly expressed general interests and not their temporary vulnerabilities.
Finally, I think you should go back and read the article. You ranted about companies trying to shove things down your throats, but the article was about how to misuse targeted advertising.
desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Lemmy is far from normal, it is not profitable as a social media platform and is reliant on donations and generosity.
Google AdSense does similar things to meta, as does amazon. This is far from a misuse, of the technology as that implies that this isn’t accomplishing the intended goal, which, aside from laws trying to differentiate children from adults, it does.
CalipherJones@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Meta purposely pits extreme sides of every issue you could think of, gender, race, class, religion, even vegan, against each other. Every hate comment is great news for Meta. Hate comments mean that person is engaging so they will feed them more of that content and further drag them into their hateful beliefs. And why do they do that? To show them shirt and knicknack advertisements while they’re frothing at the mouth.
Fuck Mark Zuckerberg. He’s one of the worst humans on the planet and deserves terrible things to happen to him.
Djinn_Indigo@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Worth notin by the way that instagram is owned by Meta - the very company the post is calling out.
Isthisreddit@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m convinced insta knows your a guy and will blast you with reels full of chicks no matter what you do.
Evotech@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, it’s impossible to escape the thottening. Same with snap
But emotional state?
Fingolfinz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
There are no ethics in capitalism
AwkwardBroccolli@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Any structure which has hierarchy in it with control structures away from people suffers from the same issue. People must own things.
pineapplelover@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Who are the 3 people downvoting? This is very true and I don’t see it ever changing as long as humans are humans. Pretty much all religions say treat each other nicely and don’t kill. But then why are there war profiteering companies around?
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
There is always 1-3 random downvotes, even on non controvertial things like cat photos. This is always how Lemmy has been. Any downvotes 5 or less can just be ignored (its probably bots)
RickSorkin@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
And how would you fix it?
reddig33@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Stop de-regulating everything. Guardrails were put there for a reason.
cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Dolla dolla bill
mPony@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
as if they don’t have enough already.
msage@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
never
… and therein lies the problem
gamer@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I pirated her book (because fuck her, she was a Facebook exec) and learned that she had a gnarly near-death experience as a child when she got attacked by a shark at the beach.
I didn’t finish the book due to a combination of laziness and my general revulsion at anything Zuck adjacent, but if you have the stomach for it there’s a cool shark attack story in it for you at least.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Were you rooting for the shark?
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To the business world people are ultimately just conduits to money.
11111one11111@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What do they mean by targeted? Like targeted how and with what if they’re talking about using the already targeted advertising data that shows a teen is receiving ads for emotional stuff?
sudoer777@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Good thing InstaFlow exists
dustyData@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What’s that weird write out on their webpage. It reads like a super cringy AI generated Instagram ad.
sudoer777@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
There’s a lot of fake versions, the real one is on Telegram (instaflowupdates channel)
Susurrus@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Facebook used to have a team dedicated to analyzing their apps’ risks to children’s and teenager’s health. The team concluded that there are indeed many serious health risks for both children and teenagers, especially teenage girls. Shortly after, it got disbanded, and all its recommendations completely ignored.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They took all that data and used it to exploit the kids.
parody@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
But really, who wouldn’t? They’re not our kids! Well, nearly 100% of them aren’t. Little Johnny will forgive papa for it one day right?
primemagnus@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Not ignored. They weaponized that info internally. And had a road map of potential liabilities and damages that may be involved.
desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
so it served its purpose well
asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ignored? Yeah I suppose so, but they sure as shit used the data for their own gain. That team really was the road of good intentions
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
When the news about that came out, I deleted my Facebook profile and tried to tell all my friends/family using FB that … this is pure fucking evil and they should also get off FB.
They all gaslit me and acted like I was a paranoid delusional maniac.